Some basic information about the current organisation of the Church of England.

The Church of England is organised into two provinces;

with the reigning monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, who technically is responsible for the appointment of all archbishops, bishops and deans of cathedrals on the advice of the Prime Minister. (In practice this means the Prime Minister decides, and is up to him or her how much notice they take of the Church's own opinion on the matter.)

The Church of England is episcopally led and synodically governed; which means that the two provinces are divided into 44 dioceses, (43 of which are in England and one, the Diocese in Europe, which isn't) each of which is headed by a diocesan bishop providing the spiritual leadership (assisted by a further 64 suffragan bishops) , whilst the administration and suchlike is carried out by the General Synod which is composed of representatives of both clergy and laity.

With the exception of the Diocese in Europe each diocese is further divided into parishes. The parish is the basic unit of the church, each of which is traditionally under the care of a parish priest (usually known as a vicar or rector). (Although these days, it is quite common to to find groups of parishes overseen by a single priest.)

All those Church of England dioceses in full.

From the Church of England web site at http://www.cofe.anglican.org and Anglicans Online at http://anglicansonline.org/

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